Earlier this month, the United Nations released a report predicting a decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan for the second year in a row. Because Afghan heroin funds the insurgency, corrupts the government and interferes with legitimate agricultural programs, this was good news for everyone. Four years ago, farmers grew poppies in all 34 of Afghanistan's provinces. Three years ago there were six poppy-free provinces; two years ago, there were 13; last year, there were 18; and experts predict that 22 of the 34 will likely be poppy-free this year. Nationwide, poppy cultivation was down 19 per cent last year, and it will likely fall even more this year, prompting the top UN diplomat in Afghanistan to say a few days ago, "This year could be a turning point" in the war against Afghan heroin.
As one of the U.S officials who developed and co-ordinated the counternarcotics strategy currently in effect, I felt heartened, but only a little. We — the international community and the Afghans — should have done a lot better. We have not delivered an effective counternarcotics campaign in two insurgency-ridden southern provinces — Helmand and Kandahar — the source of more than three-quarters of the heroin produced on Earth. The principal culprits are the Taliban, who protect their fields aggressively (killing dozens of Afghan narcotics police each year), and corrupt Afghan officials, many of whom come from these two provinces, and need the support of powerful drug lords in upcoming elections.
Outside Afghanistan, there are, regrettably, two other reasons we could not make inroads in Helmand and Kandahar: Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and Lieutenant-General Karl Eikenberry. U.S. President Barack Obama has just chosen Mr. Holbrooke, a former Clinton administration official, as his special representative in the region, and Lt.-Gen. Eikenberry as his ambassador to Afghanistan. We all wish them well, but, if they are to succeed, they need to get their facts straight, establish clearer lines of authority, and avoid the increasing militarization of civilian projects.
CARROTS AND STICKS
In early 2008, Mr. Holbrooke wrote in the Washington Post that the U.S counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan is "the single most ineffective program in the history of American foreign policy." Almost every salient fact in his piece was wrong. He claimed that the U.S. had a policy that focused on destroying poppy fields; in fact the policy — published on the State Department website — balances incentives such as development assistance and alternative crops with disincentives such as eradication and arrest. The U.S. developed the policy in close co-ordination with its allies, principally Britain and Canada.
Mr. Holbrooke also said that the poppies are grown in "rocky, remote" areas by destitute farmers with no alternatives, when two UN reports have demonstrated that relatively wealthy farmers grow most of the poppies in Helmand, which is the epicentre of world poppy cultivation. Many of them are government officials. Most of them only recently switched from growing wheat or other badly needed food crops to growing poppy. And they grow it on a well-irrigated, flat fertile plain near the major city of Lashkar Gah. These farmers are not poor, they do not live in remote areas, and they have alternatives. Mr. Holbrooke played into the hands of the Taliban and corrupt war lords, who also perpetuate the destitute-farmer myth in order to prevent any serious law enforcement action in that part of the country.
He has claimed that it was "an absolute scandal" that the Afghans and their allies have never arrested a single Afghan drug lord. In fact, four Afghan drug lords are in jail in the United States: Haji Bashir Noorzai, Mohammed Essa, Khan Mohammed and, most recently, Haji Juma Khan, aka HJK, probably the biggest drug lord in Afghan history. Afghan and international agents arranged for his arrest in October, and have since transported him to the U.S., where he will soon stand trial in open court.
